Exchange is — the — key to Marx’s concept of value. To reiterate: “Value” only exists when there is an exchange of what labor produces. And, historically, the amounts exchanged have revolved around the embedded amount of labor. While capitalism is the “value economy” — one “primarily” based on commodity exchange and exchange value — this is not to say that value and an exchange of what labor produces did not exist at the margins or even more significantly “for 1,000’s of years”, or that Engels was “wrong” re the existence of value outside capitalism.

Most fundamentally, Marx explains much better what I’m trying to get at on “value before capitalism.” And per Marx’s suggestion, pre- capitalist commodity exchange, based on embedded labor time, was at the margins of society. Re capitalist society, however, all products that have use value are exchanged based on embedded labor time. And, of course, requires a “modified” understanding of the value of a commodity (which brings us to production price). Marx not only foretold virtually everything significant in contemporary, bourgeois economics— such as the dynamics of supply and demand on price that he is accused of ignoring— but did so more methodically and went far beyond…

ngl, I'm beginning to take issue with how in conversations about anti-intellectualism almost automatically, the face of girls and women will be slapped on the problem.

a couple scribbles i cleaned up. also i think i like drawing him in varying states of distress

The defintion of hell is knowing a show is incredibly well-received in its first season, but if people don’t become machines churning out tweets, content, and rewatching 24/7, there’s no likelihood it’ll get a chance to tell its whole story. This shit is madness. Shows in different genres shouldn’t have to pit-battle for dominance. First seasons are MEANT to be baselines establishing worlds and characters, not complete storylines. The idea that this golden age of television has turned into “get it done in one or get out” is revolting.

[Discord Curse AU]

This is not an infection au per se, but, it follows similar guidelines so I'm going to tag it as such. Differences are; minimized gore, existing-story relevancy, & the end result is not death.

x

Enantiodromia

Unable to resolve their missing Elements problem, the Mane 6 went home from the Discord Labyrinth to figure out how to continue life in Ponyville - which was fully intact, albeit still a little strange. It still rained chocolate now & then. There were extra laws to physics that broke themselves daily.

Discord's true curse, at first, was unnoticeable.

Cagey guarding of one special item from Rarity ['She gets tense at work, it's understandable.'], forgotten plans from Rainbow Dash ['She's so active, everyone forgets things, right?']. Occasionally, a fib would slip out of Applejack, but she'd shake her head, correct herself, & say it was a mistake.

Even the physical changes went mostly unnoticed ; to ponies who saw each other every day, they weren't significant enough in their gradual takeover to raise suspicion.

Nobody thought much of it until Pinkie Pie missed a pony's birthday ['She's been hiding herself away a lot lately, I wonder why?'] & one of Twilight's teleport spells failed. Not to mention the . . . unicorn horn? growing from Applejack.

Fluttershy was the first to go missing.

['I hope she's safe.' - The Lost Spark]

x

Figuring out that I was aplatonic made so much sense.

I’ve never made a friend on my own. All the friends I’ve made approached me and made me their friend, or I met through friends. I’ve never felt a desire to have friends. Even as a child I never felt I needed them, which made adults think there was something wrong with me and peers think I was stuck up, thinking I was “too good” to be friends with them. I was seen as a mean person. Adults pulled me aside to ask me why I was by myself, and I told them I didn’t like people. I told them I didn’t want to be around people. I said there were more important things to worry about. This got me sent to school counselors, who would ask me why I pushed people away and didn’t want friends and I didn’t have a reason. I enjoy my friends’ company, but I don’t miss them when I’m away. I never understood why it mattered so much, even as a kid. I always preferred to be alone, honestly. I thought for the longest time it was related to being autistic and ADHD, and maybe it is to an extent, but I simply never liked people and never had a desire to be friends with them.

I’d already known I was aroace. I never felt a desire to have sexual or romantic relationships. I never saw a point. I felt no attraction towards anyone and had no desire to. My life was enjoyable without it. Once I learned about aromanticism and asexuality, I understood that that was what I am.

However, aroace spaces put so much emphasis on platonic love that I never felt like I really belonged in the aroace community. I felt like I was still weird and gross. I felt like a freak who was destined to be alone, someone who could never be fulfilled and would always be missing something. I felt like a freak in my own community because I felt no love. I didn’t feel platonic love or attraction and frankly didn’t want to.

I found the word “aplatonic”. Someone who feels no platonic love or attraction. Now I understand that’s who I am, and that’s not a bad thing. My life is no worse without love. I’m not missing something. I still live a fulfilling life. I’m still human.

no offense but i genuinely fear that their potential dynamic will go severely underutilized

Cannot Unsee. Cannot Unknow.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

I've been thinking lately about Vanitas and Noé's first "what is salvation" fight at the bal masqué and what it means about their individual definitions of the concept, and I've realized something about Vanitas.

Noé's definition of salvation is the obvious one. It feels natural. To save someone is to keep them from dying. But in a way, his understanding of salvation is also almost selfish. Noé's foundational trauma is the constant loss of his loved ones. He is the eternal sole survivor. So of course he wants to keep people alive—he wants to "save" the people he cares about in the way that keeps them by his side this time.

It's not wrong to want that, of course. I don't mean "selfish" as a condemnation. It's just that the definition of salvation that Noé starts the series with is inarguably the one that best serves his own happiness.

And it's the same with Vanitas.

When Vanitas kills the little girl Catherine by restoring her true name, he tells Noé he doesn't know what salvation is. He might be lying there, or he might be telling the truth in that he's never put his definition of salvation into words or acknowledged it on a conscious level. Either way, though, I do think he has a definition of salvation somewhere in his mind, and it's a very personal one.

Vanitas sees salvation as the preservation or restoration of one's true self. You're saved so long as you can preserve your essential self, uncorrupted by outside forces. Even if the price of that selfness is death.

While Noé's foundational trauma that informs his worldview is the loss of his loved ones, one of Vanitas's foundational traumas is the loss of his bodily autonomy. Through Moreau's experiments and Luna's mark/bite, he has been transformed into something no longer fully human, and he hates it. From the moment Luna told him he was dying, he said he wanted to die as himself rather than live as their kin, and he has been denied that opportunity.

Nothing is more important for Vanitas than being able to dictate the destiny of his own body, and malnomen are the ultimate corruption of bodily autonomy and selfness. Altering one's true name warps not only their physical body, but their very being on a metaphysical level. The curse takes everything a vampire is and changes it, and doing that to an unwilling victim is the ultimate horror for Vanitas.

Given that context, of course Vanitas thinks that killing a child to restore her true name counts as saving her. He's restoring her essential self and un-corrupting her body and being, and even if her self is only returned for an instant before she dies, it's preferable to living on as something warped by an outside force.

Vanitas absolutely starts the series with a definition of salvation, and like Noé, it's the one that best serves his own happiness. He wants to be saved. He wants to be returned to his human self, and failing that (since he knows it's impossible), he wants to wipe out all traces of the force that changed him and then die without going any further down the path of inhumanity.

Vanitas might not be able to admit that definition out loud (or even to himself directly), but it's there, and it guides him early in the series as much as Noé's own definition of salvation guides him in turn.

There's a critical lack of maggot Godseeker in the fandom

(unmasked Godseeker speculation woooo)

For reference:

Again… Yes, Bill Jefferies!

As Marx states… I think in Grundrisse… while prices revolve around value, it is “only by coincidence” that price exactly matches value. And, of course, this is true for both commodities and prices of production, as the price of machinery, raw materials, and labor power also only revolves around value. Indeed, while many posited a theory of value based on labor before Marx, Marx’s major contribution — and his “law of value” — provides a foundation for understanding how and why prices deviate from value…

what is considered "beautiful" by society is inevitably sexist, racist, ableist, classist, transphobic, and bigoted. it targets and attacks any perceived difference, and it particularly villainizes women of color while co-opting aesthetics; as if features and cultural norms can be worn as accessories.

and the scary thing! you can see all of these things, know them to be true logically, and also know that you are treated better if you are perceived as beautiful. if you have ever been treated as "ugly", you know exactly how much society reviles you if you don't manage to scamper along and perform to their rules.

and how are you supposed to balance that? do you want a nose job to fix your broken nose, or have you just recently been seeing videos about how many people look better after nose jobs. do you want to lose weight to feel good, or is it that when you lose weight people treat you better. do you want to wear this outfit, or is it just the thing that's least likely to get you harassed. do you want to get lip injections for your reasons or is your whole reason that you don't feel beautiful unless you get those lip injections?

and the definitions shift. the goals get more specific. in the way that you only become aware of your tongue when someone mentions it; parts of your body are introduced as problems. i had never heard the term "hip dip" until about a year ago - and it was in the context of how to get rid of this. i'm 30, i know this shit is invented, and yet! i still find that strange voice saying but do you think someone is going to notice?

how the fuck am i supposed to say "this is my genuine choice i am making for my body" when i also know that years of my life have been spent socializing me to accept this as my inevitable fate? how do i know i'm actually doing this out of love for my body - or am i doing it for how i want others to see me, which will be lovely enough to feel loved? how am i supposed to recover when my unhealthy habits are seen as self-discipline but if i relax i'm openly mocked for "letting time win"? how the fuck am i supposed to say "i'm doing it for me" when i'm also very aware that i'm doing it to stop myself from being teased or demeaned? is it my choice if the other option is being bullied?

we are living in a hostage negotiation - either consent to the demands or spend the rest of your life being treated like you're a despicable person.

Relationships don't have to be transactional. They don't even have to be 50/50. The idea that a "good relationship" is split down the middle, where nobody acts like people, and instead vends out appropriate cookie-cutter responses and dialogue is genuinely harmful.

A good relationship is one wherein the person/people involved are happy. You don't have to give, you don't have to take. You can enjoy each other's company and be together. If there comes a time when that need changes, then the person who should know is whomever is in that relationship with you. This isn't solely about romantic or sexual partners, this goes for platonic friends or otherwise anybody who spends enough time with each other to establish some type of relationship with each other.

I'm so annoyed. @kingcrow01 tumblr ate your ask about Danny's opinion on the League. tumblr i pressed 'save draft' why didn't you sAVE DRAFT.

ANyways I'm making a post instead. For everyone else, the ask was in summary:

What was Danny's opinion on the League now that he's left it? If he missed the familiarity of it, if he recognized the cult-like behavior inside it, and if he now detested his grandfather.

And to answer (again, grrr): It's complicated! We love complicated <3. Yeah, Danny does miss the familiarity of the League, it was still his home for the first ten years of his life and he has a lot of memories there. Plenty of good along with the bad, and while he's less homesick than he was when he was 10, it still hits him like a truck at random intervals.

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz are great, and he likes the Drs. Fentons enough that he's contemplated murdering Vlad for his meddling, but if he wants to eat the same food his mother used to make him and Damian, he has to do it himself and he can't get the taste right. No one knows arabic so he speaks it to himself because he doesn't want to forget his mother tongue, and he has a few books too. Frankly? He genuinely misses training.

Getting to use Sam's gym helps with his restlessness, same with training with Maddie, but he has no one on or above his level to go against other than his mother. And he only sees her twice a year at most. He knows that he's getting stagnant and he fucking despises it like a bad itch he can't scratch.

He feels conflicted about missing the League, however, since by now he recognizes the flaws and what was wrong with it, and he recognizes that it was cult-like. But even that is kinda, hrm, complicated? If this was a fic I would be able to go better into depth about what he has and hasn't unlearned because cult deprogramming is hard and Danny's doing most of this on his own.

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz have helped with the more obvious stuff: like the ecofascism, the disregard for human life, his emotional constipation; the more obvious stuff that shows in his behavior and personality. But none of them are professionals nor do they actually know the full extent of what Danny's life in the League was like. They only have snapshots since Danyal is very tight lipped about it. So they can only help with what they see themselves through Danny's behavior or word of mouth.

But in summary: He sees, for the most part, what's wrong with the League and disagrees with some of the stuff they do now. But he's very conflicted, and trying to dissect his feelings on the League confuses him. His protests about it whenever Sam and Tucker joke about it have at this point become mostly empty (altho it still causes him some discomfort), and its an inside joke between them three.

As for Ra's? Despises him. If only because Ra's wanted him to kill his little brother -- thinking about his motives with the League confuses Danny, cognitive dissonance and stuff, -- a lot of his hatred stems from "He wanted me to fight my baby brother to the death. I destroyed my relationship with Damian because of him, I had to fake my death and leave my home, and I will never meet my father or see my brother again because of him. Fuck that guy."

the safest way I've found to ship a human character with an ancient godlike being is simply to make the human be able to royally kick the ancient god's ass at any given point

it helps balance the power dynamic AND it can be funny as hell